The present invention relates generally to a conference call management method for application software, and more particularly, but not by way of limitation, to a system, method, and computer program product for sustaining the call quality through management of the call participants.
Voice-over-IP (VoIP) performance depends on a number of network-related factors, including available bandwidth, end to-end delay, packet loss and jitter. Variance in these parameters often leads to degradation of VoIP performance and the Quality-of-Experience (QoE) perceived by end users. Moreover, other than network issues, applications-specific factors like the choice of codec, codec parameters, and jitter buffer sizing also impacts QoE. It is important for implementers of VoIP applications to assess QoE as perceived by the end user and take mitigating actions when it degrades to unacceptable levels. Mean Opinion Score (MOS) is a commonly-accepted metric to measure the QoE of a call as perceived directly by the end user. It encapsulates the effects of both network-specific and implementation-specific issues.
When the number of the conference call participants is small (e.g., a few people), usually the call quality would be excellent or the best that could be achieved based on the current system and network capabilities. However, when the number of participants starts to grow (e.g., in case of educational sessions, all-hands meetings, remote round-table meetings, etc.), the system and network resources would be overloaded such that it is not feasible to maintain the same call quality, and accordingly, Quality of Service (QoS) would be dropped which could cause call troubles and eventually user dissatisfaction.
There is a need in the art for a technique that can help the moderator in avoiding the drop of the call quality due to the situation of too many participants joining the call, using too many resources, such that the load would be exceeding the capability of the network bandwidth and resources available.